


Burning Wood

by plumfulkiss



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Canon Rewrite, Derek Hale's Past Consent Issues with Kate Argent, Episode: s01e05 The Tell, Episode: s01e06 Heart Monitor, Fire, Flashbacks, Full Shift Werewolves, Hallucinations, I don't like it trust me, I'm Bad At Tagging, It's Kate and Derek, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is Noah, Sleepwalking, Stiles Stilinski Likes Derek Hale, Underage Rape/Non-con, it takes place between these episodes <3, wolf - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumfulkiss/pseuds/plumfulkiss
Summary: The day after a mountain lion is killed in the parking lot of Beacon Hills High School, Scott has a lot to fix. Stiles is mad at him, he and Allison are in deep trouble, and on top of that, he had another spell of sleepwalking that led to him waking up in the woods. He's worried, worried, worried that he could have done something last night...And then Jackson Whittemore goes missing.
Relationships: (In the Past) - Relationship, Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Danny Mahealani/Original Male Character(s), Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, It's the guy he took to the formal in s1 i think his name is damon, Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski
Kudos: 2





	1. two bits.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a rewrite of On Fire: A Teen Wolf Novel so that it better aligns with canon <3 original credit goes to Nancy Holden but honey.... im gonna fix what ended up being wrong.
> 
> Anyway as you saw by the tags uh, this is kind of a nightmare fic? I need help with some tags so if there's something that I missed please let me know. leave a comment!! ilyall

It was the night of the parent-teacher conferences at Beacon Hills High School, and everyone in the student parking lot found themselves in a complete and utter panic. A creature, presumably a wild animal or something much worse, was racing up and down the rows of parked cars like a monster on a mission. Scott McCall--maybe others; his humble California hometown was starting to look weirder and weirder by the minute--could hear the low rumbling of the creature’s growls. If he shifted his eyes, he could see glimpses of whatever it was as it slunk along, stalking warm prey. Fresh prey, even. 

People were running in all sorts of directions, some hopping into cars, maybe even ones that weren’t even theirs. Others stayed on foot. None really seemed to look where they were going. In the hustle and bustle of everything, someone backed up and managed to hit Stiles’ dad, the Sheriff, sending him tumbling to the ground in the chaos of it all. Scott hoped he was fine; he knew he’d hear complaints about it from Stiles all night and into the morning if he wasn’t. That wasn’t to say Stiles was annoying, he was just protective: protective of his father, the only parent he had left. 

People were driven mad with fright, one almost hitting Allison Argent had Scott not been there to save her; he grabbed her and tore her from the line of action, almost too quick to be human. Good thing he wasn’t human, at least, not anymore.

It was like a torrential downpour of people, all caused by one, one  _ thing,  _ one beast that seemed t-

Allison’s father, Chris Argent, fired two shots.

It was over and done with.

Scott kept Allison in his sights as they slowly pulled themselves out of their panic-driven hiding spot and joined the circle of now-silent witnesses. On the ground in the middle of the crowd lay a mountain lion—the seeming-culprit to this and other murders that had recently come to pass in Beacon Hills. Even though all but a select few accepted the creature as their murderer, Scott knew it had done nothing to deserve this gruesome end. He reasoned that hadn’t even wandered onto school grounds of its own accord.

It had been lured. The murders would continue.

Somewhere out there, the real culprit was watching. Gloating. The elusive Alpha, the werewolf that had bitten Scott and cursed him with lycanthropy…. Was still out there. Free, even. Perhaps even now he was sitting, watching them and plotting his next move while Scott stood here staring at the harmless animal. 

Allison looked up at Scott, her big brown eyes wide, lips pressed together. Her long brown curls hung over the shoulders of her black leather jacket as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly, swallowing as she took in the sight. Her hair fell in her face; she didn’t brush it out of the way. Giving yet another pitying look at the mountain lion, the folds of her green and blue scarf brushed against her chin. There wasn’t a soul cheering the death of the animal, least of all her. Even her father, who appeared to have done what would have happened eventually, seemed silent as he peered down at the thing.    
Scott smelled Allison’s dismay, heard her pounding heartbeat with his metaphysical hearing. He would have done anything to keep her safe tonight, to end her birthday on a high note. He was relieved beyond telling that he hadn’t shifted forms in all the stress.

She was still safe from his horrific secret.

Narrowing his eyes at Scott, Allison’s father put a hand on her shoulder before reaching to pull her to him. She went along gratefully, although now Scott could feel and smell hot anger pulsing in her throat. Part of him wondered if she would feel the same if it was him taking two gunshots, turned into the terrible monster he’d been turned into not long ago.   
Chris Argent was the leader of the werewolf hunters, and he had shot Scott through the arm with a crossbow bolt the very first night Scott had shifted. Derek Hale, a born werewolf that had  _ coincidentally  _ turned up into town the day after everything began, had rescued him and filled him in on the details. Scott still felt waves of worry when he thought about what would happen if Allison’s Dad found out about him, even further what would happen if she found out. Thankfully, things were working out for now. Chris hadn’t realized what Scott was, and he would’ve liked to keep it that way.

Allison took one last grave look at Scott as if she were memorizing what he looked like, and then father and daughter walked toward Allison’s car. Chris opened the passenger side door for her and, placating her nervous gaze, Allison got in obediently. Scott’s brow furrowed in confusion, but realization drew his big brown puppy-eyes(which was ironic now, based on his downright canine affliction) wide. He was going to drive her car home, and Allison’s mom would take their SUV back to their house. Oh, they were definitely busted.

As Chris Argent shut the car door, he turned and gave Scott a last, long, hard, so-very-pissed-off stare. But it was only the look of a protective father angry with a boy that wasn’t good enough. It was the look of a father angry at him for encouraging his perfect-perfect daughter to ditch school. He averted his gaze until they moved to pull out of the lot.

_ We’re  _ **_so_ ** _ busted, _ Scott thought.

It was not the perfect ending he had imagined for the perfect birthday for Allison. It was just that she’d looked so stricken that morning when Lydia’s surprise quite literally came flying out of her locker; somehow, without even being at a school that day(which was an entirely different ordeal), she’d gotten balloons and a card into Allison’s locker. The pretty, popular people always had that sort of power. Even a year ago, Scott couldn’t imagine being close by with them, and now he and Stiles were sitting at their table and--in Stiles’ case--trying to solve a murder they were witnesses to. Scott had been really lacking on that today, but it was for a good reason.

Scott hadn’t even known it was her birthday until asking her that morning. Turned out she hated celebrating her birthday at school, which was a problem he didn’t really understand. Of course, he hadn’t had his birthday yet; he was still fifteen, although his birthday would be coming up in about a month and a half. 

Allison was seventeen. She failed a grade and ended up repeating; it was because of all the moving around. But people in other towns had assumed all kinds of things—that she was dumb, that she’d had a baby, all sorts of things. None were true. Scott was well aware that she was much smarter than him, and, well… he hadn’t seen a baby at her house when he’d gone over. 

He’d wanted to protect her from yet another day like that; if Lydia had known without Allison even telling, that meant half of the school knew by then. So they’d taken off.    
And the day had been magical. They spent it in the woods, hiking and picnicking and reveling in each other for the entire day, talking about everything and nothing and enjoying it all. When darkness fell and the stars came out, she’d said she never wanted it to end. Shrouded in moonlight, she admitted she even wanted to spend the night out there with him.

_ With me,  _ Scott thought, his own heartbeat picking up, a thrill rushing through him the more he thought about it. He watched them drive away, Victoria Argent--Allison’s mother--behind them in her car, and he couldn’t help but smile crookedly, cheeks dusted pink as he thought about it, thought about  _ her. _

He too, could have spent forever with her attention, but all good things would eventually come to an end.

“Scott,” his mother snapped, pulling him back to attention with her narrowed gaze and stern expression, “In the car. Now.”

He glanced downwards then, finding it easier to look at the mountain lion. “Okay, mom,” He said quietly even though she certainly didn’t want to listen to what he had to say right about now. 

He let her march on ahead like a hangman leading him to the gallows: His crime? Overall disappointment. Her back was ramrod straight, her shoulders raised. Everything about the way she was standing, moving even, drove the idea home. Scott already was going to get the ‘talk’ about his grades after this parent-teacher conference no matter what he did, and now she was even angrier because he’d blown it off and forgotten to show up entirely.

She was  _ pissed _ , and he didn’t blame her. He was flunking his science class, and all his other grades weren’t doing much better. Part of him wanted to argue that schoolwork didn’t make much sense to him, which was true, but not _ that  _ true. Stiles had found a way to manage and his grades were all at least passing. Finding out he was a werewolf and being with Allison had taken up all his attention; if he didn’t have a huge aspiration to be a vet, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

As they got in, his mom got behind the wheel and he buckled up. Unlike so many other drivers, she was careful starting the car and pulling out of the lot. She wouldn’t have hit Stiles’ dad; they were friends, for one thing, and she wasn’t stupid.  _ I’m not stupid either _ , he thought, but he then quickly readjusted the statement.  _ I’m not  _ **_always_ ** _ stupid. _ He had moments of clarity. 

When they merged onto the street, it started to rain and she flipped on the windshield wipers. One of the wipers squealed against the glass. They needed to be replaced. Their car was falling apart, like their house. He knew the child support payment for this month had gone almost exclusively to his lacrosse payments, even if it would’ve been put to better use here. Not that his mom would ever mention it.

Having werewolf-enhanced senses was a mixed blessing. Sometimes Scott would hear things he really would’ve been better off not knowing at all. 

At the moment, he was listening to his mother’s heartbeat. It hadn’t slowed down since the chaos had kicked off. Maybe tomorrow people would be relieved that the mountain lion had been killed, but tonight, the freakiness of having a supposedly man-killing animal slinking up and down the maze of cars was just too much for her. As she turned off onto a sidestreet that would eventually get them to their house, she squeezed the wheel tightly and exhaled, digging a hand through her curls, flexing her fingers before returning to gripping the wheel like she was going to snap it in half.

“Mom,” Scott said quietly, trying to carefully ease her down from this torrent of worry; he had worries like this sometimes. She glanced at him and shook her head silently before staring forward through the windshield again.

“I’m just so angry at you, Scott,” She said finally as they pulled up to a stop in front of their house. She turned off the car and, as if God had to tell Scott he was angry at him too, the rain came down heavier and heavier. “That I can’t even find the words to say.”

Before he could say anything, she got out and scurried through the downpour, up the driveway and into the house. When he got out a few minutes later with enough time to let his mother go find a place to stew, the rain hadn’t let up at all. He made sure to lock his door and then headed quickly for the door, not bothering to cover up his head with the hood of his jacket; no point. He looked around, wondering if the Alpha had followed them all the way here and was lurking in the shadows. Stalking him. Waiting for him. It scared him. Creeped out and soaked to the skin, he soared through the doorway and shut it behind him.

Making sure the door was locked, he turned around and braced himself to be called into the living room for a lecture, but his mom had apparently gone straight to her bedroom and shut the door; he could hear the squeak of her shower, and, naturally, he decided to stop listening.

After a moment of thought he took off his shoes, leaving them by the door before they tracked dirt around the house. Despite being soaked to the skin, he slipped into the kitchen and looked for something to eat. They couldn’t really do dinner; it was late, his mom was angry, and he wasn’t good at cooking, but… he could make a sandwich.

His mom spent a lot of time in her room after she and her father divorced, would bring home food for him and forget to eat herself. Stiles had taught him the perfect peanut butter and jelly ratio under similar circumstances taking care of his dad. He helped.

Scott dug out four pieces of bread and slathered them all up before pressing them together, cutting them diagonally with a butter knife. He cut the crusts off of his--for a moment his mind went elsewhere and he remembered feeding them to his dog--and plated them both before heading upstairs.

Listening in, he heard that his mother’s shower had turned off. Good timing. He dropped off his own sandwich in his room, stripping himself of his wet jacket and hanging it up on the rod holding up his shower curtain before slipping out of the door and back towards his mother’s room at the end of the hall. 

He knocked rhythmically(in his head he thought,  _ Shave-and-a-haircut _ ) and waited hesitantly. When she didn’t open the door he tried one more time, slower but still the same call-and-response, before placing the plate down at her door.   
Scott quietly headed back to his own room. He could hear the rain dripping through his roof now, and quickly moved to find the bucket and put it underneath the drip-drip-drip. They could’ve gotten that fixed with the money too, he thought. 

As he ate his sandwich he tried to video chat with Stiles, but his best friend wasn’t online. He was probably checking over his dad and getting his own silent treatment about his parent-teacher conference, although he didn’t expect it to be as bad as his. He wasn’t skipping as much as he was, and, ignoring the recent issues with his ADHD, his grades were acceptable. His dosage might get upped, and that’d be that. Sometimes he envied the relationship between Stiles and his dad.

He tried to text Allison, feeling practically restless, but she didn’t answer. For all he knew, her parents had confiscated her phone and her dad would be the one to read his message.  _ Better not push my luck,  _ he thought.

Scott powered down his computer, setting his now-empty plate to the side. Despite being restless he knew there wasn’t anything he could do, so he changed out of the rest of his rainsoaked clothes and climbed out of bed. Left only with himself to talk to. Maybe that was a good thing. If someone could hear his thoughts all the time, he wasn’t sure they’d like what they heard.

_ That mountain lion didn’t do jack,  _ he thought.  _ And Allison Argent wants to sleep with me. That’s crazy. _

He sat up suddenly, hearing a shuffling just outside of his door. His eyes shifted beta-gold, and he prepared to have to fight off that horrid Alpha… even though he knew he wasn’t strong enough.

Knock, Knock.

And then, there was the sound of his mother disappearing down the stairs.  _ Two-bits, _ Scott thought quietly. 

Smiling faintly for the first time since he’d arrived at the school, he bunched up his pillow under his head and turned over on his side . . .

_ . . . rolling onto a pile of leaves. He was shirtless, wearing only his boxers. _

_ Scott lifted his head and sniffed the air. Thick, heavy smoke. A fire. _

_ He bolted upright, bare feet sinking into wet leaves as he scrambled to his feet. He inhaled again, trying to figure out where the fire was. There was so much smoke, it was surrounding him, wrapping him up in a tunnel. Animalistic panic threatened to overtake his mind, the wolf inside of him begging to get out of there and keep them safe, but he kept it together. He had to keep it together. Looking around, he could see an indentation where he had lain. He had woken up here before—the very first time he had gone sleepwalking. _

_ After the Bite. _

_ Ash floated down from far up above, and along with it came bits of building and fabric, red turned back with flame; the smoke was getting thicker, and Scott could hear the crackling of burning wood. There was a strange sound, like a woosh, wind travelling upwards to the sky and bringing flames with it, leading his gaze upwards to the moon. _

_ The huge full moon, shining blood red against the starless sky. _

_ The full moon. That can’t be right. _

_ Coughing, Scott jogged forward as the fire spread into the trees, chasing him and following his every move. _

_ A growl ripped from his chest and he shifted his eyes into their beta gold, his vision turning as red as the fire that was clouding him. He could see others fleeing the flames, some human, some something else entirely and he didn't recognize them. Heat prickled his bare shoulders and the backs of his legs. Embers floated down and one landed on his chest. As he brushed it away, he lost his footing on the damp leaves and fell hard onto his back. Breath knocked out of him, his thoughts shot to his inhaler. He didn’t have it with him. Smoke was pouring over him like someone throwing a blanket over his face. He couldn’t breathe; he was out of air, and he was a severe asthmatic. _

_ Had been an asthmatic, he reminded himself. Past tense. Before the Bite. Becoming a werewolf had cured him of his lifelong asthma. _

_ An enormous, fiery limb broke from the tree above him and plummeted downward like a bomb. He rolled to the side and leaped to his feet. Another branch crashed to his right, sending up sparks. _

_ He was driven forward, coughing hard, his eyes watering. Then, just like the night he had been bitten, a herd of panicked deer burst through the trees, leaping in a distressed stampede around him, at him, over him. Even the animals weren’t safe. One knocked him hard and rolled end over end over end down the hill. Balls of flame careened down the incline at him, as if someone had lit the flames and was aiming it at him. _

_ Then he hit a tree trunk and pushed up against it. Reaching for a limb, he hoisted himself up, then raised his legs fire slammed into the trunk, mere inches beneath him. Sparks skittered upward. His stomach muscles ached, but he held the position. The heat singed his hair, crackled in his ears. _

_ He dropped down, stamping out the tinderbox of leaves and twigs under his bare feet. His soles blistered and stung but he had to keep going _

_ Dead ahead, two red eyes glowed like hellfire itself. Surrounded by darkness, they dug right into his soul, his heart, his everything, making him freeze despite the flames biting at him. He could feel the pull of that gaze. Sense the power, the rage behind it. _

_ Come to me, a voice said inside Scott’s mind, sounding commanding, insistent. He didn’t want to obey, but, either way, he found himself moving in its direction. It was like when Stiles sleepwalked after his mother died; he remembered finding him in his backyard when he slept over in the months after it happened. _

_ Come with me, the voice ordered him. _

_ It was like the world was burning in front of him, but still Scott climbed toward those evil red eyes, unable to stop himself, heading for certain death. Into hell itself. Somewhere he wondered where his pack was, his real pack, his actual pack… but that didn’t make sense. He didn’t have a pack. The alpha was the closest he came to, and were it not for the fact he was literally forcing himself in his direction, he wouldn’t count it at all. _

_ And the voice said,  _ **_Kill with me._ **

  
  


“No, I won’t!” Scott yelled, bolting upright.

He came to consciousness half naked in the forest, alone, halfway up a hill. He was wearing his boxers, and there was no fire to be seen. The trees stood tall and silent, dew clustering on their needles and branches. Lavender and pink painted the sky with the colors of early morning just before sunrise, and in the distance, a bird chirped. Something rustled in the bushes at his feet and he jolted upwards in fear only to find nothing; at least, nothing there to kill him. 

Scratching his chest, he pushed his hair out of his eyes, knotting through the locks with his fingers as he pulled himself to his feet with an antsy feeling of déjà vu. He hated this sleepwalking thing, waking up after a blackout to find himself miles away from home, deep inside Beacon Hills Preserve. He never had any memory of how he’d gotten here . . or of what he’d done before he’d come to. This morning was no different.

_ Did I do something _ , he wondered.

Derek Hale, the other Beta werewolf in Beacon Hills, promised him that sooner or later, he was going to kill someone. Derek was twenty-two, a born werewolf of the Hale family. He’d lived here his entire life up until his senior year of high school when the majority of his family--excluding his sister and uncle--had burned up in a house fire that was rapidly approaching its sixth anniversary. After it had happened, he and his sister ran, travelling until finally settling in New York City, a broken memory of a world-renowned pack of werewolves. They broke apart at some point over a fight. She left, he stayed, and that was that.

He’d left Beacon Hills and vowed to never come back. So much for that, he supposed. He was back now, lured to Beacon Hills to find his sister—the murdered jogger Stiles had heard about on his father’s police scanner the night before school started at the high school. Laura Hale.

Scott was a young werewolf, with just one full moon under his belt, still resisting the call of his Alpha as best he could. He’d already refused to kill with the Alpha once, but Derek said it was only a matter of time before the Alpha tried to force him to hunt and butcher. Scott’s only hope was to help Derek find the Alpha first, and kill him.

And if Scott dealt the killing blow himself, he would be free of the werewolf curse. Or so Derek had told him.  _ But I’m not a killer _ , Scott thought as he began to stagger through the forest. The rustling in the bush grew louder all of a sudden, a bit more frantic, and He cocked his head, listening, trying to find a scent. He glanced downwards.

At his feet, stamped into the damp earth, was the print of a single, perfect wolf claw. He bent down and laid his hand over it.

_ Not mine, _ he told himself. It wasn’t exactly a genius observation; he didn’t change into a wolf. Derek didn’t, either. But Derek’s dead sister, Laura Hale, had. Scott and Stiles had seen her in wolf form when they had dug her up beside the burned-out shell of the Hale family home a few days after school had started. Then they had removed the wolfsbane spiral circling her grave, and she’d been a girl again. A dead girl. Well, half of a dead girl.

Scott became aware of something watching him, and he tensed. His fingernails lengthened into claws and he quietly growled.

Slowly he raised his head. His eyesight wolfed into beta gold, then became human again, as twenty feet away, a silvery-black wolf stared at him with eyes that shimmered reddish brown. The rising sun cast a glow around it, almost as if it were a spirit, not real, and it stood statue-still. Scott wondered if he was still dreaming.

Then the wolf turned and slipped gracefully away, slipping among the trees.

At school, he realized all too quickly that Stiles was ignoring him. It started in the parking lot when he trotted over to the jeep, fully prepared to dish nonsense all about the dream he’d had last night, the mountain lion, everything, and Stiles gave him one annoyed look before moving on.

“Stiles,” Scott called, watching him usher past. Was this about his dad? About yesterday? He frowned.

Before the Bite, Scott’s three main goals in life had been playing first line in lacrosse, getting a girlfriend, and buying a car. Accomplishing two out of three was excellent, but he wished he’d put and stay human on his list. Maybe even be a good person. He’d been a dick these last couple of days--ignoring Stiles’ research developments on the alpha, and not texting him to check in last night after video chat wasn’t available. Being a dick didn’t look good on him.

“Stiles,” he repeated, watching the boy with the buzzed hair freeze up in front of him. Stiles was starting to grow his hair out, and it showed; ‘never again,’ he’d said when school started. “I’m sorry, dude, but can we just talk?”

Stiles turned to him with a narrow gaze. After a moment he sighed, rubbing his eye with his hand. “I’m listening.”

“I had another weird dream last night,” Scott explained as Stiles begrudgingly loped up to him and they walked shoulder to shoulder into the school. Stiles had on his bull’s-eye T-shirt, and it kind of freaked Scott out when he wore it. As if it meant that Stiles was a target.    
They were both acutely aware that the Alpha wanted Scott to kill with him, to cement Scott’s acceptance that he was a member of the Alpha’s pack. Who better to take down than the guy Scott’s mom had once referred to as his ‘litter mate’?

“Hm,” Stiles said, still agitated but willing to help. He always ended up helping in one way or another. “Did you wake up in the woods? With rabbit breath?”

“God. No.” Scott grimaced. “At least, I don’t think so. But there was a fire, and—”

“Fire. Great. Fire that has become a recurring theme in the drama that has become our lives,” Stiles said sarcastically, rolling his eyes at Scott’s grimace. “And we know that this is because—”

“Scott,” Allison greeted, bobbing over with a worried expression on her face. She was wearing that black-and-purple top with no sleeves and the heeled boots, and she gave him a kiss right there in front of everyone with no hesitation despite the crowded hallway. Scott pulled her to him, snaking his arms around her waist in a greeting hug. When their lips disconnected she looked up at him again, plenty on her mind but feeling eased by his touch.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at the two of them. Sighing, he kept walking, leaving them in favor of first period.

For a moment Scott found himself getting lost in Allison’s kiss. He wanted her to do it again, and again, and if they weren’t going to get in deep, deep trouble, he’d run away with her all over again to get it. However... her beautiful face was rapidly filling with more and more and  _ more  _ concern, and he focused hard on what she was saying through his kissdrunk stupor.

“. . . missing,” she was saying. “He wasn’t at his house last night, and Lydia found an odd note in his dresser drawer,” she told him. “And his Porsche wasn’t in the garage.”

Lydia. Porsche. His mind parsed what she was saying, and alarm bells went off. She was talking to him about Jackson Whittemore, his lacrosse team captain and kind-of-sort-of bully, depending on the day. Who was missing—the morning after Scott had had a blackout and woke up in the woods. Suddenly he felt queasy.

“Wait. Lydia was at his house but he wasn’t?” Scott asked.

“Yeah. His parents are out of town. Left just last night, after the conference,” Allison explained, and she had the strangest look on her face. He didn’t know how to read it. Was she feeling embarrassed? Shy? Something else?

_ Woah, it is something else _ , he thought, grinning at her. She dimpled. She wished it could have been them in a house with no parents. Honestly, he couldn’t blame her. He would’ve suggested it, murmuring lightly against her ear as the crowd passed by around them… but the bell rang. First period.

“I have to scoot. My parents are making me have a meeting with the counselor,” she said with a frown, and gave him another kiss before pulling apart from him and slipping through the late crowd towards the office. He watched her go, catching Lydia’s exhausted gaze as she passed by to her own class. Scott swallowed.

_ I didn’t kill anyone last night, _ he told himself.  _ I’d know it if I had. _

But would he?


	2. color me unsurprised.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Scott knows Jackson is missing, plans are made to figure out what to do next.

When lunchtime came along, Allison and Lydia waved Scott over to their new usual table in the cafeteria. It was still so strange to him that he and Stiles sat at the cool table now because Allison and Lydia were friends, and no one was cooler than Lydia Martin… well, nobody except for Jackson Whittemore, the captain of the lacrosse team, and Lydia’s boyfriend. Jackson who, to an almost unreasonable level, totally had it in for Scott, hated every bone in his body for his sudden rise in status. 

_ And is missing _ , Scott thought fearfully.

“I told Lydia you’d help us,” Allison explained to him as he put his tray on the table and sat down beside her.

Even though he had his own serving, he reached to snatch a fry off of her tray. “Sure,” He said with a gentle nod, “What with?”

“Finding Jackson,” Allison replied.

The three of them were alone for the moment. Despite her practically-perfect makeup and every strand of strawberry blond hair in place, Lydia looked as if she hadn’t slept at all. She still looked great—not as great as Allison, but no one was as pretty as Allison—and she glanced furtively around and kept her voice low, talking quick so as to fill Scott in on the recent developments.

“So, I went over to Jackson’s like we planned, after the parent-teacher conferences,” Lydia said hushedly. “His parents had already left for the airport. Paris,” she elaborated. “I swear, they don’t have any imagination. They go to Paris all the time. Anyway, he wasn’t there, but this was.”

She reached into her purse and dug through whatever it was that girls kept in their purses—Scott wasn’t exactly clear on that, but the things they kept in there had saved him more than once—and pulled out a folded piece of paper, ripped at the bottom. She passed it gingerly to Allison, who opened it up and tilted it in Scott’s direction. He leaned over her shoulder and squinted to read it.

_ Dear Jackson, as you are now called, _

_ My name is Pren Pattillo, and I am a private detective. I have important information about your birth parents to share with you. To show you that I am sincere, please look at the enclosed. Afterwards, call me at - _

The rest of the paper was gone. Just like Jackson was gone, for reasons that had nothing to do with Scott and his nighttime activities. He was almost relieved.

“It had to be a phone number,” Lydia said. “And I’m thinking a picture of his biological parents. Or maybe a baby picture, or adoption papers?”

“We think Jackson went to meet him,” Allison said, glancing at Lydia, who nodded, before turning her gaze back to him. “And he hasn’t come back.”

Scott handed back the note after folding it up tight again. “And . . . did you talk to Sheriff Stilinski?” The sheriff, Stiles’ dad, was quite literally the man for the job, and had been for a few years. Scott wouldn’t be a werewolf now if Stiles hadn’t eavesdropped on his father’s call from the department, informing him that a dead jogger had been found in the woods. Make that half of a dead jogger, actually. Scott and Stiles had gone out to look for it, too, and that’s when the Alpha had attacked him. And all this mess had started up. 

Speaking of Stiles… where was he? Scott glanced around, hoping he wasn’t avoiding him on purpose after the night before.

“No,” Lydia said quickly, “I haven’t contacted Sheriff Stilinski, and I’m not going to. It might be nothing. And if it’s nothing . . .” She shrugged her shoulders, allowing them to slump more than they were before.

“Lydia told her parents she was spending the night at my house last night,” Allison explained, her cheeks pinkening as she gave him another glance and cleared her throat. Scott wondered what kind of punishment Allison had gotten for bailing on school the day before. He doubted they’d be spending the night together anytime soon, whether they were allowed to or not.

“Besides, Jackson is the captain of the lacrosse team,” Lydia said. “If it’s nothing, it will make him look stupid.”

_ And Coach might demote him _ , Scott thought, but he sincerely doubted that could actually happen. Jackson could’ve been the Alpha for all Scott cared and he somehow would’ve gotten out of any punishment.

“I can access his location from my phone if I have his login info, but I don’t . . . seem to know his password at the moment,” Lydia commented, making a narrow-eyed face as she opened the app on her phone. She made a face. “It’s not what it used to be.”

Scott was clueless. Oh, so, clueless. “Lydia,” Allison whispered softly. “That’s what the password currently . . . isn’t.”

Lydia huffed. “Let’s not overshare,” she said dramatically to Allison. She typed lines of texts into the little login bar displaying on her phone. “I’ve been trying all kinds of possibilities, and I was wondering if maybe he’s using a lacrosse term. I’ve tried baller, cannon, man-up . . .”

Allison’s brows rose slightly in amusement, and Scott was about to translate what the terms meant, mouth open in explanation when she picked up a fry off her plate and fed it to him. Oh, so she’d seen him do that. As he chewed, she rested her head in her arms, cocked her head, and smiled up at him. It was the best-tasting fry in his life ever.

“Can you think of anything Jackson would use for a password?” Allison asked him, reaching up and messing with the slight wave of his hair.

_ Other than ‘I am an asshole’? _ Scott thought, but did not say.

“Oh, don’t ask Scott,” Lydia said as she stared down at her phone and blew air out her cheeks. “Okay, not ‘Stick,’ either.” She glanced at Allison. “He and Jackson barely know each other.”

“They’re on the same team,” Allison pointed out.

“Hardly,” Lydia said bitterly, glancing at Scott and Allison with a pitying smile.

Allison pursed her lips and was about to say something when Stiles arrived, followed by Danny and some of Jackson’s and Lydia’s other regulars. The regulars crowded the rest of the table, leaving Stiles to shove his tray at the end. The last seat was usually reserved for whoever had errands to run during lunch, the small cramped space not good for anything other than  _ looking  _ like a seat, but Stiles seemed to take it like a champ. Scott looked at him, frowning slightly. He didn’t look back.

“Where’s Jackson?” Danny asked. “We were supposed to get together this morning for scrimmage. I know he’s still feeling weird about the video store, but-”

“He’s not here,” Lydia said firmly, cutting her gaze to him as she turned off her phone and set it face-down.

“Yeah, but where is he?” he persisted.

Scott took note of it quietly. Danny was Jackson’s best friend, but it was obvious Jackson hadn’t told him about the detective or the note, and, according to one of Stiles’ thousand messages from the day before, he hadn’t talked to him personally about the murder he and Lydia had been witnesses to earlier that week. Scott and Stiles told each other just about everything, and Scott was glad of that… even if Stiles was mad at him right now.

Stiles was the only person on the planet who knew that he had become a werewolf.

Well, Derek knew, too, but Derek hardly counted as an actual person. Given a choice between hanging out with Jackson Whittemore or Derek Hale, Scott would have to go with Jackson. Except, of course, that Derek could keep Scott alive—or so he claimed—while Jackson would probably be a little bit psyched if Scott bit the big one.

_ Hey, I cracked a werewolf joke, _ Scott thought, smiling to himself before tuning back in to the conversation.

“Jackson is not here,” Lydia replied, enunciating carefully, as if Danny might be having trouble understanding her. That was definitely the signal not to pursue the subject. After all, in the boyfriend-girlfriend rules according to Lydia, Jackson should keep her informed of his whereabouts at all times. It would embarrass her to have to admit that she didn’t know where he was, either. And no one embarrassed Lydia Martin, ever. Not even boys that she rejected; she kept their numbers available for if her and Jackson were on a break and she had somewhere to go.

So the subject was dropped. Lunch without Jackson—that was pretty sweet. Even sweeter, Allison fed Scott some more of her fries and smiled her little smile, and texted him a happy face when they left to return to their classes.

Life—despite it being life as a werewolf—was good. 

  * • •



Allison couldn’t stop thinking about how cute Scott had looked eating her lunch, and she kept daydreaming about doing something with him after school today—it was Friday, glorious Friday—until she remembered that she was grounded. Her father had totally lit into her the night before, pacing and demanding to know how she could have skipped school and gone into the woods while a mountain lion had been on the loose. 

Her mom had been angry, too, but Allison could tell that if it had been left up to her, she wouldn’t have been as harsh about having to stay in all weekend. Her mom liked Scott, despite her stern exterior.

_ So, score one for my guy, _ she thought.  _ I’ve never skipped school before, but I’ve never had a boyfriend before, either. And I’ve never had such a perfect birthday. It was worth it. Except I won’t get to spend time with Scott except at school until I’m, oh, 112. _

_ I could probably wait that long. _

The last bell of the day rang and she headed for her locker, anticipating a less-than-thrilling weekend of homework and hopefully spending time with her aunt, Kate. At the thought of her aunt, who was practically more like a sister, she fiddled with her new necklace, the one with the strange creature on the pendant. Kate had given it to her for her birthday. S

he spotted Lydia waiting for her at her locker, slipping on her high-waisted coat that Allison was begging to borrow one of these days.

“I figured out the password,” Lydia announced excitedly, tight lips drawing upwards into a smirk. With an air of triumph, she showed Allison the screen of her phone. “It’s ‘Captain.’ Leave it to him to come up with such a hard-to-crack password, right? Here’s where Jackson is.”

Allison squinted at the address and phone number as she methodically twirled her combination lock, getting the locker open. “He’s at a motel?”

Lydia nodded, her expression oddly cool and collected. Allison didn’t know what to make of that.

“It appears so. But I’ve called his phone and he’s not picking up. And I called the motel and they haven’t seen anyone named Jackson, or who even looks like Jackson. And there’s no Pren Pattillo registered.”

She peered through her lashes at Allison, who opened her locker and put her lab notebook into her leather messenger bag. Allison smiled back uncertainly, not sure what Lydia was driving at.

“Color me unsurprised,” Lydia said, and Allison’s brows drew downwards in confusion. She explained, “Unsurprised that there’s no one there by the name of Pren Pattillo. At this kind of motel, people go by John Smith and Jane Doe. Or possibly Bambi von Boob Job. That sort of thing.”

Realization. Allison blinked at her in horror.

“And pay by the hour,” Lydia added almost bitterly.

“No way.” She closed her locker door and leaned against it. “Why would a detective arrange to meet Jackson there? And would Jackson even go into a place like that? Wait. Don’t answer that.”

“Well, apparently his phone did,” Lydia said as she looked back down at the screen, dropping her facade that the conversation they were having was anywhere close to normal. “I need to check it out,” She said, looking less than thrilled. “Come with me?”

Allison blanched. “I’m grounded,” she said quickly. And gratefully, she realized after a moment, not wanting to see what a motel like that could have to… offer. “I can’t go anywhere.”

“Except maybe my house?” Lydia asked, smirking hopefully. “To work on our English project?”

_ The english project we don’t have _ , Allison translated. She bit down gently on her lip. “I guess it’s worth a shot to at least ask my folks if I can,” She agreed. Allison had never been grounded before; she didn’t know how it worked. Scott, no, but a girlfriend, yes? She hoped so.

“Thank you,” Lydia said gratefully, twisting a chunk of her hair with her finger..

Just as Allison pulled out her phone, she caught sight of Scott. He was talking to Stiles, his more-than-quirky best friend, but when he glanced her direction he found himself glued to her until Stiles threw his hand in front of his gaze. Her insides went all warm and tingly and she gave him a little smile. He grinned and started walking over. Stiles followed. That was okay with her. She liked Stiles.

“What’s up?” Scott asked. “Did you find Jackson?”

“Possibly,” Lydia replied, raising her chin. She gave Allison a look. “And about that? We could use some backup,” she declared.

“Yeah, um,” Allison said anxiously, smiling almost nervously up at him. “Do you want to go to a motel with me?”

  * • •



Scott gaped at Allison.  _ Did she really just ask me to go to a motel? _

He looked over at Stiles for confirmation. Yes, there it was: his best friend’s jaw practically dragging on the floor as he gaped. Stiles looked from Scott to Allison to Lydia and back to Scott, as if his day of trying to stay mad at Scott had led him to miss… well, miss everything. Actually, he was still mad at Scott. It was just in their best interest to ignore it for now. He blinked up at Scott, motioning with his head for him to say, well, say  _ something.  _ Jesus.

“Are you seriously asking me that question?” Scott asked Allison with a crooked smirk, and she playfully batted his arm.

“Not to do . . . that,” she said, cheeks flush. “We’re looking for—”

“We’re going on an errand,” Lydia cut in, then licked her lips and cleared her throat, as if she had just realized how that might sound.

“I could totally help with that,” Stiles said quickly. “Errands are my middle name. Actually, my middle name is almost as difficult to pronounce as my first name, but hey, I could do it.”

Scott glanced down at Stiles with his brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought your middle name was Barbara.”

Stiles’ ears went red with embarrassment, and he swatted at Scott. “You’re back on my shit-list, Scott. And don’t even try to copy me, because you can’t even  _ say  _ my first name.” Scott gave in, obeying like a puppy that had just been lectured. Stiles was right, he  _ couldn’t  _ say Mieczyslaw Barbara Genim Stilinski. Really, he was lucky he could spell it.

Lydia slid them both a glance that hovered somewhere between incredulous and impatient, and Stiles went silent. Which, as Scott knew, could be very challenging for his hyperactive best friend. But it had been achieved before, and could be again if the stakes were high enough. And for Stiles, who had been crushing on Lydia Martin since kindergarten, pleasing her was sky-high level stakes.

“Stiles is quite the hacker,” Allison said, and Lydia’s disdainful gaze grew thoughtful.

“And I’m sure you’re very good at tracing people via their phones,” Lydia said, tilting her head at him.

“They have an app for that,” Stiles explained, feeling the impending doom of his rambling coming. “Several, actually.”    
Lydia smiled.   
“Which, I’m guessing by your expression, you already knew,” He added. Scott could see the lightbulb go on. “And this someone might be at a motel,” Stiles continued. “And I am guessing that this someone might be Jackson.”

Lydia shrugged. Then she turned to Allison. “Tell you what. If the boys are willing to go to the motel for us—”

“To a motel. To look for a guy,” Stiles said thoughtfully, tapping his chin before reaching epiphany. “Hey. Maybe you should ask Danny?” Danny, their lacrosse team goalie, was gay, out, and proud. “He could act, you know, more casual about it than Scott could.”

Scott reached over and shoved Stiles’ shoulder, a little harshly before easing up and sending a sympathetic gaze. “I’m sure Danny would love to help. Maybe even the rest of the lacrosse team, if we needed th-”

Realization.

Scott shut his eyes against the pain as reality came crashing down on him.    
“We can’t go. We have lacrosse practice.”

Stiles stared at him, looking even more dumbfounded than when Allison had asked Scott to go to the motel with her. He gave his head a little shake, then gestured for Scott to move out of earshot of the girls.

As soon as they were a few feet away, he punched Scott in the arm. “Are you insane?” he said. “Did you knock a screw loose after the whole mountain lion thing? Actually, did you knock  _ more  _ than one loose?” He asked incredulously, narrowing his gaze as he weighed the two options in his hands. “Let’s think this through. Getting smacked around by sweaty guys with sticks. Going literally anywhere else, and with someone you actually  _ like _ .”

His tone was a little bitter, but it was all too true.

Scott grinned. “Well, when you put it that way...”

“I’ll tell the coach you’ve got food poisoning.” Stiles held up his hand as if solemnly swearing to tell the full truth, nothing but the truth, and utter BS. “I’ll tell him you’re dying. Partially because this morning, I wanted you to be dead. No offense.”

“None taken, but… if her father finds out, he’ll kill me,” Scott said.

“He’s already trying to kill you. So no worries,” Stiles replied cheerfully, reaching up and messing with Scott’s hair before flicking him in the temple.

He swatted at him with a pout. “Yeah, okay, but it looks like it’s not just me and Allison going. It’s me, Allison, and Lydia.”

“Well, don’t get any wise ideas when you’re there,” Stiles said with a sigh. He clapped Scott on the shoulder. “Go, my friend, go be a man who just happens to be looking for another man. I’ll take one for the team. Again.” Then he glanced longingly in Lydia’s direction, sighed again, and took off toward the boys’ locker room.

“Thank you,” Scott called, hoping his best friend had heard him.

When he returned to the girls, Lydia was reapplying her lip gloss and Allison was looking kind of guilty and a little nervous as she held her phone to her ear. Seeing Scott in her makeup mirror, Lydia clamped it shut and then glanced at him, “So it occurs to me that I have tons of math homework, and I was wondering if you two could handle the trip to the motel on your own.”

She popped the cap back onto her lip gloss and gave him a look, asking for his thoughts with just his eyes. He cluelessly just nodded. “I’ll go camp out at Jackson’s, in case he shows,” She added, looking between him and Allison both.

“Okay, sure. Thanks, Mom,” Allison murmured into the phone before hanging up. “They said okay.” Her forehead was furrowed, as if ‘okay’ was a bad thing. Scott remembered that she’d been grounded. He had, too, but he was on the honor system. He had lacrosse practice, and his mom had the night shift. They wouldn’t be home at the same time until tomorrow morning. Which meant that he could sneak around if he needed to.

Part of him didn’t like that he needed to.

“So you can go,” Lydia translated with a cocked eyebrow, and Allison nodded. The strawberry blonde nodded tightly as she gathered her things. “You let me know what you and Scott find out the minute you get there,” she ordered Allison.

“I’ll call you,” Allison promised. Lydia hugged her, pushing the brunette’s hair behind her ear before dipping out towards the student parking lot.

Allison and Scott both gathered their things for the day and walked out too, heading for her car. At least this time, they were leaving at the time they were supposed to. By the time they’d reached her car, she was still looking weirded out and apprehensive, and Scott paused beside her driver-side door.

“Is this okay with you?” he asked her lowly.

“Yeah,” she said, relaxing a little as she slid her arms around his waist. “It’s just . . . I didn’t expect my parents to say I could go to Lydia’s. Last night my father said I would be grounded until the end of time, and today he seemed almost glad that I wasn’t coming home.”

“Oh,” Scott said, slinking his arms around her too. He didn’t know what to make of that, and it worried him a little. Maybe the Argents were going out werewolf hunting. For the alpha. Or for him. “But he thinks you’re going to Lydia’s, right?”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, lowering her head into his chest, and nodded. She didn’t like lying to her parents. He knew how that felt. He hated lying to her.

“Yeah,” she said into the fabric of his shirt. “He thinks that first we’re going to study in the library, where we’re not allowed to have cell phones on. And then, he, um, thinks I’m spending the night at her house.” She gazed up at him mischievously with those huge dark brown eyes of hers, and he thought he would explode. He still couldn’t quite believe that of all the guys in school, Allison Argent had picked him to be her boyfriend.

“So aren’t you?” he asked her, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “Spending the night at her house?”

She wrinkled her nose, half shy, half something else entirely. “Maybe not,” she replied.

Scott’s face turned red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's talk about this chapter!  
> tumblr @plumfulkiss

**Author's Note:**

> let's talk about this chapter!!  
> tumblr @plumfulkiss


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